CNN correspondent operates on Iraqi child.

Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical correspondent and a neurosurgeon, performed emergency brain surgery on Thursday in a vain effort to save the life of a 2-year-old Iraqi boy wounded at a U.S. Marine checkpoint south of Baghdad.
CNN issued a statement saying the network applauded Gupta's decision, on humanitarian grounds, to cross the line between journalists and the U.S. armed forces unit he was "embedded" with, to participate in the operation.
"Sanjay was sent to that particular unit as a medical correspondent, but we clearly support his efforts under these extraordinary circumstances to save the life of a dying boy," CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. "We are all proud of him."
The boy, who had been struck in the head by a bullet or shrapnel in a shooting incident at the checkpoint, died despite Gupta's efforts. Gupta said the brain surgery went "very well" but the boy's other injuries proved too extensive.

Just as well, cos if, as Hosni Mubarak thinks, the Iraq war will only serve to further inflame Arab tensions, that boy would likely eventually have just grown up into a bitter and resentful young man who would likely eventually have joined the army to fight the hated Americans, and no one would've been proud of our Dr Gupta then, would they? He's just lucky he didn't try saving the life of an actual soldier as did a US army doctor in an article I read in the paper this week... can't find it online and can't find the paper either, but suffice to say he was roundly criticised for being so presumptuous as to live up to his Hippocratic oath and medical training and try and actually save a life rather than let another be lost, even if it was an enemy life. Apparently that stuff Lt.-Col. Tim Collins said about treating enemy casualties with dignity applied only to his men...

posted by James Russell | 6:10 PM